It matters that people have a way to use the latest findings in psychology beyond buying a pill for depression. It matters that people have a way of looking at their lives that lets them ask the big questions and determine how they want to live – and that this is supported by therapists and mental health professionals.

And just in case you need an overall guide to your emotional health, and you lost the manual that came with you at birth, Daniel Gilbert tells The Atlantic that psychology is an owner’s manual for our own minds! This is excellent news because Gilbert says this is the road to becoming better, and thus happier. He even says that happiness is not the fluffy and trivial thing we might think it is, but the thing that all human beings seek, “even those who hang themselves.” Hmmmm…

Speaking of emotions, as existential psychologists, we often spend at least as much time dealing with so-called darker sides of life as we do with happiness and betterment. But USA Today reports that these dark places, such as loneliness, can be bad for your health. In seniors, loneliness can lead to increased blood pressure as well as disruptions in sleep. According to the study, loneliness was isolated as a factor beyond the other poor health factors normally present in an aging population. One way to combat this scourge is found on the pages of PsychCentral, which reports on “8 Ways to Help Stop Ruminating” should you or your client feel that the time has come for movement from those dark places.

Now that the pendulum is back to happy, the only place to go from here is skiing in Santa Fe with the Dalai Lama, where a waitress asked him the meaning of life, recounted in Slate. The Dalai Lama, with all his existential Buddhist wisdom, as well as his trademark sense of humor, gave the waitress this answer:

“The meaning of life is happiness.” He raised his finger, leaning forward, focusing on her as if she were the only person in the world. “Hard question is not, ‘What is meaning of life?’ That is easy question to answer! No, hard question is what make happiness. Money? Big house? Accomplishment? Friends? Or …” He paused. “Compassion and good heart? This is question all human beings must try to answer: What make true happiness?” He gave this last question a peculiar emphasis and then fell silent, gazing at her with a smile.

Mortality

Death is the great certainty of life -- and a subject we almost never talk about. How we live in its shadow, and the choices we make about the best way to live a life where time is the only non-renewable resource, is a key element of existential thought.